Archive for January, 2010

i realized lately that i have problem expressing myself in both written and oral forms. So being inspired by my prof and my ex-boss back in Eusoff, I decide to put my thoughts down into blog. pardon me if you find some sentence hard to understand, because it’s directly written from my thoughts with little or no amendment.

The first one i want to talk about is what NOC wants students to achieve.

I was talking to Thet the other day about leadership and NOC. that leads me back to the question: What exactly does NOC want students to achieve through the program?

To motivate entrepreneurial spirits? No need, because those who are selected already have.

Or is it to immerse the best students in new environment to:

1. build a network with the companies?
hmm probably. But I doubt if this is among the main focus on NOC program. Would the money spent on NOC be better spent in regard to this matter, for example, setting up another

2. build their softskill? hmm maybe. but we can still do this in Singapore with CCAs, iLead and all that, right.

3. build their hardskills?
I dont think so. Even though we are thrown to various technology-based companies, what we do here are pretty much varied. Some are asked to do admin work, some sales, PR work, etc. For NCST there are a countable number of students who aren’t assigned with the work related to their field.
In short, the random factor is high (at least for NCST students). It should be much slower for the other colleges (since SV, BV, BJ and SH are very much towards tech,

recently I have some more understandings about entrepreneurship, these are really based on my personal experiences rather than just rattling off from any entrepreneurship slide elsewhere.

1. entrepreneurship is about consistency. You ingrain a habit within you and stick to it. not a sprint but a marathon. motivation is what gets you started, habit is what keeps you going.
not sure about others but most singapore students i met (me included) have this last-minute work culture. i think it goes against the consistency principle above.
– one claim that each person has different effectiveness-stimulator.
– true, so if you’re a last-minute person, why not break your work into pieces and set your own deadline for each.

talking on consistency, i recall a quote i read somewhere on bitsofwisdow.com saying: “Motivation is what gets you started, but habit is what keeps you going”.
I’ve created a habit of jogging for 30mins at least 2 times a week for me, the other days are used for workout.

2. entrepreneurship is about network of trusted people.
that, i guess, is one of the purposes of noc programs. so the gang who go to noc together with you are those (supposedly) closest to you. these people will become your best friends, your partners in the future. because you spent enough time with them, working with them, so you know what they are capable of and have enough trusts on them.

so is university life. that’s why in university, we should explore more, meet more people, do more CCAs.

As I observe, different students have totally different experience with NOC. Some worked very hard, earned themselves hard-core skills, company’s trust and set up a subsidiary in Singapore. Some realize their potentials, dreams, or some simple thing like how small they are in this world (as least for me).

One thing I found interesting about NOC is peer-learning.
Being here almost 6 months, I’d have to say most of the things I’ve learnt, either knowledge-base, inspiration-base, realization-base are from the peers around me, rather than the courses I take or the work I do for my company. Imagine throwing a group of top-notched, diversified and knowledge-thirsty students together in some land for 1 year, what would each individual become afterwards?
Again this is my personal opinion, not all the people i know are aware of this peer-learning, they rather just stick to their own world and assume the others are not worth their time. You know who.

updated: I just talked to hari about what NOC wanted students to achieve. His take: NOC just provides opportunities for students, what to be learnt in the end are up to/different for each individual.